Band hopes joke by Fallon leads to Tonight Show gig
Rylan Schultz remembers watching the 1995 Late Show With David Letterman episode when the show’s laconic host turned a Regina gas station attendant named Dick Assman into an international celebrity.
Now Schultz, a Saskatoon-based singer, hopes to transform a brief and unexpected appearance on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon into a massive opportunity for the rock ’n’ roll band he fronts.
“We figured that if (getting on the show) is even a possibility, we should probably take that chance,” The Pistolwhips’ singer and guitarist said Tuesday, a day after the band launched a campaign to appear on the talk show.
The campaign — including a Facebook video that has been viewed over 54,000 times — stems from a segment that aired Friday during which Fallon wrote joke-laced thank-you notes to various people and phenomena.
One of the notes featured a stock photo of Schultz, taken six years ago, exhaling on a cold winter day. “Thank you, seeing my breath in the cold during winter, for making me look like I’m constantly vaping,” Fallon joked.
Schultz said while it may be unlikely, the timing is right — the Pistolwhips have a new single out, and are planning to release their latest album “Voices” in the next couple of months.
“No matter how you look at it, it’s kind of a long shot,” he said. “For any band, no matter what calibre you are, to be on the Tonight Show, that’s a pretty big honour … It’s a wild opportunity to say that it might even be a possibility.”
Schultz admitted he’s been in contact with the show, but declined to comment beyond saying “it’s definitely a possibility that something could come out of this.”
A Tonight Show representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Schultz and his bandmates, Paul Kuzbik and Tallus Scott, are preparing to play at Saskatoon’s Capitol Music Club on Friday and hoping their video gets enough views to capture the NBC host’s attention.
Asked whether he is prepared to be Saskatchewan’s next Dick Assman, as his friends have joked, Schultz laughed and replied, “If that’s what it takes to get the ball rolling, I wouldn’t say no.”